S.A.T.O. Past and Present

  So Below are some links to my last S.A.T.O. 48 Project. That stands for Springfield And The Ozarks 48 Hour Film Competition. This is a competition I compete in every year for the past 5 years. Below are last years Trailer and Film. If you have ever seen a film that I have directed you would notice that in almost every one there is some form of underwater work. This film was the type of story that I'd been wanting to do with underwater for some time.
  Underwater is difficult to do under normal conditions let alone in a 48 hour period. Luckily, each year, I have upped my underwater gear. Last year I built a housing for the Canon T2i the night of the competition. The housing worked out great. I built it from a "Pelican" type case, some PVC, optical glass, and about 10 tubes of loctite 5 minute cure, two part epoxy. we shot all the mermaid shots in the Aqua Sports dive pool with the t2i and a black tarp. The other river and coin shot was got on location at Sequiota park with the gopro hd hero. The gopro footage looked ok enough for the competition and wowed the audience but there is a distortion when you use the domed lens underwater. For this year I have already solved the problem with the GoPro lens. I built myself a new lens out of a watch face and a lens adapter ring. It works amazingly! The first test of that lens was on the "Mystery Hour" shoot with Nate Black and Jeff Houghton. Our stunt man for the shoot, Frank Gonzales, had used several previous generation gopro's in the past and was completely familiar with the mounts and how to use the cameras. This shoot fully prepared us for the next shoot and more importantly, we got great shots.
  This years competition takes place in April and I've really got to step up my game. armed with 3 GoPro's and a T2i I hope to rock the competition with the most dazzling underwater footage yet. The hardest part is making a story work with the rules and underwater and in under 5 minutes. I wish I had a separate screenwriter and editor, but even without, I hope to make 2 films for this years SATO.
  So check out the videos below and comment away!

800+ miles
14 Hours drive time
over 30,000 still photos
1 photo every 2 seconds
36 hours of rendering time
10 minutes final product.....too long

Costume design videos

Here are some videos from trailers for films that I designed costumes on.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdKUCKnSBBQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjxYnHdQBc&feature=related

GoPro at the Lake

Here is a little compilation of video that I shot on a company outing to Table Rock Lake.  This video was shot with the original domed lens.  The underwater is a bit blury but still not bad.

GoPro in Film

Here is a video we shot as an intro to our local talk show "The Mystery Hour". We combined shots from the GoPro HD Hero with a Sony 3ccd HD cam. The shots with the GoPro camera were achieved in several ways. One mount is off the back of my 1990 Honda Civic. I used a 3M adhesive mount right on the hatchback fin. Another rig I built recently was used called a "Trowski Cam" This rig is modeled off the "Snorri Cam" concept with a fully adjustable, levered, arm leading from the wearers stomach. the entire rig is worn like a vest with a pole sticking out. That's how we achieved the running, close-up, shots and also the tackle into the pool. All the underwater is shot handheld and I have made my own lense out of a watch to get rid of the slight distortion of a round lense. Enjoy and check out "The Mystery Hour" on Youtube.

GOPRO at Silver Dollar City

This is what footage you get when you have to sneak the GoPro HD Hero camera in and out of your pocket and press record and stop on a 60 second rollercoaster.

What it's about...

   So, here we are at the first post of this blog.  I wanted to have a place to showcase specifically both my costume design and my GoPro camera work and mounts.  To make it interesting and educational. I'll be posting articles on costume builds, camera mounts, how to achieve shots, and the technology available to do what we're working on.  A few recent areas of interest for me have been:
Making plush or stuffed animal type costumes.  I should have some build info up on that topic in the near future. 
HDR or High Dynamic Range Video.  it's a new application in the DSLR world that I'm itching to try out. 
I have built a functioning mermaid tail for film that I'd like to discuss and will have photos up of soon.
GoPro Hd Hero will be releasing a 3D rig soon that I'm interested in and the firmware update that came out recently has been a huge advancement for ease of shooting.  Soon you'll be able to see photos of my specialized underwater housings.
  So hopefully some of this catches your eye and I hope you'll keep reading and watching!
Cheers!
  Ryan Piotrowski